HRW -D.R. Congo: Activist Beaten "To a Pulp" Status:

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source:
Human Rights Watch, Africa Division
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D.R. Congo: Activist Beaten "To a Pulp"

(New York, March 20, 2002) -- Human Rights Watch today condemned arrests
and beatings of human rights activists and journalists by the Congolese
Rally for Democracy (RCD) in eastern Congo. Human Rights Watch also
criticized the RCD and its ally, Rwanda, for arbitrarily detaining
Congolese in a container near Goma.

On March 15 security officials of the Direction Provinciale de la
Sécurité in Goma arrested and severely beat Richard Muhindo Bayunda, a
human rights activist. He was arrested when he met security officials to
protest against the recent detention of a journalist, and the fact that
the authorities were threatening his re-arrest if he did not pay US $60,
effectively a bribe. The officials kicked Bayunda and beat him with
clubs and rifle butts. When released later that day, he was vomiting
blood and had open wounds on his back, buttocks and mouth. Bayunda heads
the Center for Research on the Environment, Democracy, and Human Rights
(CREDDHO) in Goma, an organization that regularly denounces abuses to
the RCD authorities.

“RCD authorities always tell local human rights organizations to bring
reports of violations directly to them rather than informing outsiders,”
said Alison Des Forges, Senior Advisor to the Africa Division of Human
Rights Watch. “And then they beat the activist who brings them such
concerns to a pulp.”

Bayunda was arrested when he met security officials to discuss the March
9 detention of Raphael Paluku Kyana, director of a community radio
station in Kanyabayonga, who was en route to a training workshop for
media professionals organized by the All-African Council of Churches in
Nairobi. Kyana was held for several days at the Direction Provinciale de
la Sécurité.  That same week Deo Baabo, head of the non-governmental
organization GEAD in Goma, was also detained and interrogated for
several days because he was wrongly accused of having gone to Kinshasa
without authorization. In another case of harassment of civil society
actors, RCD authorities in early March suspended a journalist of Radio
Television Nationale du Congo just after he chaired a press conference
held by women’s groups in Bukavu to celebrate International Women's Day.
In previous years organizers of International Women's Day have also been
threatened with arrest and other repressive measures.

Rwandan army soldiers and the RCD, who are fighting against local armed
groups known as Mai Mai, are currently detaining suspects in a cargo
container in Ndosho, about 15 kilometers from Goma, under inhumane
conditions. Although the facility is located on territory supposedly
administered by the RCD, Rwandan soldiers seem to exercise authority
over it, deciding such questions as who has access to the detainees.
According to local sources, Rwandan soldiers have even refused to allow
RCD judicial authorities to visit the container. Detainees, some of whom
have reportedly been tortured, have no access to medical or legal help
or to their families.  The container gets very hot in the day and very
cold at night. Among those detained are five men named Muhondo Mirimo,
Munihire Mirimo, Floribert Mirimo, Kamanyole, and Weteshe.

Human Rights Watch called on the Rwandan government and the RCD to close
this illegal and inhumane detention facility. The detainees should
either be released or charged with a recognizable offence and
transferred to an officially acknowledged place of detention, in
accordance with Congolese law.


For further information, please contact:
In London, Juliane Kippenberg: +44-207-609-0459
In New York, Suliman Baldo: +1-212-216-1297

--
Human Rights Watch
Africa Division
Phone: +1-212-216-1834 (direct)
Fax: +1-212-736-1300
http://hrw.org/africa/index.php









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